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The Private Case is a collection of erotica and pornography held initially by the British Museum and then, from 1973, by the British Library. The collection began between 1836 and 1870 and grew from the receipt of books from legal deposit, from the acquisition of bequests and, in some cases, from requests made to the police following their seizures of obscene material. From its foundation in the eighteenth century, the British Museum acted as the national library of Britain. It was one of six legal deposit libraries in automatic receipt of all works published in the UK; this included pornographic or salacious material, seditious publications, those subversive of religion and works that could later be deemed by the courts as libellous. From the nineteenth century, the subversive and libellous material was separated into the Suppressed Safe collection while the erotica and pornography were placed in a locked cupboard known as the Private Case. Access to the material was restricted, and the catalogue of Private Case publications was not released to the library's general readership. The contents of the Private Case collection changed over time, shrinking as works were declassified and put into the general collection, and growing when the library received bequests and donations from collectors. Some of these were large: the book collector Henry Spencer Ashbee's 1900 bequest contained 1,379 volumes of erotica; the anthropologist Eric Dingwall—an honorary assistant keeper to the department of printed books—donated several works during his lifetime and at his death; and in 1964 the bibliophile Charles Reginald Dawes bequeathed 246 works of erotic literature. From 1964—and reflecting the increasing liberalisation of social mores of the time—the library began to liberalise its approach to works in the Private Case, revising the collection and moving items onto the general catalogue for general access, a process that was completed in 1983. There have been no new entries in the Private Case since 1990 and all new erotic or pornographic material is openly accessible and listed in the general catalogue. There is no restriction on access to the Private Case material, except for some items which are in a fragile condition. At its largest, the collection comprised some 4,000 works; as at 2023 about 2,500 volumes are still classified by the library as part of the Private Case. Background The British Museum Act created the British Museum in June 1753. The Act provided for the purchase of the collection of the physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane and the Cotton library, assembled by the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton; the Harleian Library, the collection of the Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. The British Library Act 1972 created the British Library on 1 July 1973. Into the new body were combined the library holdings of the British Museum—which provided most of the British Library's collection—the National Central Library and the National Lending Library for Science and Technology. The library later also incorporated the holdings of the British National Bibliography, the Office for Scientific and Technical Information, the India Office Library and Records and the British Institute of Recorded Sound. The British Library is one of six legal deposit libraries in the UK and Ireland, and the only one to have a right to automatically receive a copy of every printed work published in the UK. In addition to books, this includes pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, sheet music and maps. Certain digital material is also collected under legal deposit, including some websites, e-journals and CD-ROMs. As a legal deposit organisation the works they receive include pornographic or salacious material, seditious publications, those subversive of religion and works that are potentially libellous. Historically, such works have been accepted by the library, but some were not released into their general access collections or were not included on the publicly accessible catalogue. As well as the legal deposit works lodged with the library, they would also receive private donations and posthumous bequests from collectors, including those who amassed works of erotica and pornography; these were also accepted, but not put in the general access collection. History Nineteenth century There are no records in the minutes of the British Museum trustees' meetings or within the records of the librarians regarding the opening of the Private Case, and no accurate date when it happened. Philip Harris, a former deputy keeper at the British Museum Library, records that in 1836 the Reverend Henry Baber—when he held the post of Keeper of the Printed Books—reported to a parliamentary select committee that young men should not have access to improper French novels, and that he had locked up such works, particularly those with illustrations, and they would only be released upon application to himself. This, Harris notes, was the beginning of what became the Private Case. Paul Cross, a member of staff of the British Library, puts the date of the case's opening at approximately 1841, while the library was under the leadership of Sir Henry Ellis and Anthony Panizzi was the Keeper of Printed Books. The process was continued by Panizzi's successor John Winter Jones, who did not inform the library's trustees or officials of the practice of withholding books from circulation. The historian Peter Fryer, in his study of the Private Case, considers the case began in 1856 or later; the cultural critic Gershon Legman estimates that it began operating between 1866 and 1870, based on the dates of the early accessions. According to Cross and Harris, between the late 1830s or early 1840s and 1854 the collection grew to 27 books, then to 60 by 1860 and by 1864 the collection grew to 78 items. The collection included several works published pseudonymously, as was common at the time. These included works such as The Crafty Whore (1658) by the Italian author Pietro Aretino (translated by Richard Head from the original Italian); The Whore's Rhetorick (1683) by Philp-Puttanus (a pseudonym of the Italian writer Ferrante Pallavicino); A New Description of Merryland (1741) by Roger Pheuquewell (a pseudonym of Thomas Stretzer); The Natural History of the Frutex Vulvaria (1741) by Philogynes Clitorides; Teague-root Display'd (1746) by Paddy Strong-Cock; Matrimonial Ceremonies Display'd (1748); Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1788–1790); The Cuckold's Chronicle (1793); and Paradise Lost; or The Great Dragon Cast Out (1838) by Lucian Redivivus. Some publishers of pornographic material did not forward their works to the British Museum Library. A boom in pornography was seen in the 1850s, much of it generated from the publishing houses in Holywell Street, London, which were known for their output of pornographic books. Some pornographic publishers, such as William Dugdale, never sent their works to the library, which meant.... Discover the Tim Dean Steven Ruszczycky David Squires popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Tim Dean Steven Ruszczycky David Squires books.